Excessive blood loss when performing surgery on highly vascularised organs within the human or animal body is a particular problem when using conventional surgical tools, such as the scalpel blade.
The liver is the largest internal organ in the body and is a lobed glandular organ contained in the abdomen. The main role of the liver is in the processing of products of digestion into substances useful to the body. It also neutralises harmful substances in the blood, secretes bile for the digestion of fats, synthesises plasma proteins, and stores glycogen and some minerals and vitamins. When the liver becomes diseased or cancerous, it may be necessary to remove sections of the liver or kill the cancerous cells in situ in order to cure the patient. One of the risks or drawbacks associated with conventional liver surgery is the large amount of blood that is lost during surgery. For example, it has been reported that the average blood loss during the long and complex surgery to remove liver tumours is anything between 2 and 20 pints.
The extent to which the liver may bleed when it is cut can lead to morbidity and mortality as well as presenting visibility problems to the surgeon as he or she attempts to controllably cut into the organ.
Liver cancer or hepatic carcinoma is a significant cause of death worldwide. In the United States alone, over 18,000 people are diagnosed with new primary liver tumours each year. Surgical removal of the cancerous tumour and a region of surrounding tissue is currently the treatment of choice and liver resection is generally considered to be the only potentially curative treatment for primary and metastatic liver tumours.
One known device that attempts to address the above problems consists of four needle antennas arranged in a formation whereby the four antennas are inserted into the liver tissue and connected to a RF frequency generator (having frequency range of between 480-700 kHz) such that the tissue surrounding the needles is heated to seal the blood vessels. This provides a dry edge that is subsequently cut to remove the tumour or the diseased section or segment.